Nathan Bedford Forrest

Nathan Bedford Forrest (13 July 1821-29 October 1877) was a Lieutenant-General of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War and the founder of the Ku Klux Klan terrorist group. Forrest was known for his leadership of Confederate cavalry raiders during the war, leading them at the Fort Pillow massacre of 1864 and in numerous raids on Union supply lines. Forrest allegedly became Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, but he left the Klan in 1874 and became one of its critics.

Biography
Nathan Bedford Forrest was born in Chapel Hill, Tennessee in 1821 to a Scots-Irish family. He worked with his uncle in Hernando, Mississippi from 1841 to 1845, and he gunned down two of the Matlock brothers after they killed his uncle; a surviving brother would later serve under Forrest. Forrest became a businessman, planter, and slaveholder, and he was elected as a Memphis city alderman (belonging to the Democratic Party) in 1858. When the American Civil War, Forrest joined the Confederate States Army, and he became a cavalry commander; he fought at Fort Donelson and Shiloh in 1862. Forrest became known for his cavalry raids on Union supply lines during the war, and he was feared by the Union army. On 12 April 1864, he massacred several African-American troops at Fort Pillow after defeating the Union garrison, one of the bleakest and saddest events in American military history. He cut off William T. Sherman's supply lines in the southeastern campaign of 1864, depriving the Union of millions of dollars during a raid on the Union supply depot at Johnsonville on 4-5 November 1864. On 2 April 1865, he was defeated at Selma by James H. Wilson's army, and he surrendered on 9 May 1865.

After the war, Forrest was deprived of his slave trading business as a result of the abolition of slavery, and he offered his services to the US Army in the case of a war with Spain in 1873; Sherman thanked him, and he told him that he would be honored to serve alongside him if the USA decided to intervene in Cuba's renewed war for independence. Forrest was one of the founders of the "Ku Klux Klan" after the war, later rising to become Grand Wizard. In 1868, the Klan had 40,000 members in Tennessee and 550,000 total members throughout the American South, and he was involved with the murders of African-Americans and white Republican Party voters. However, he called for the extermination of the white racists in 1874 and advocated the admission of blacks into law school in 1875, changing his views. He died of diabetes in 1877, and he is often seen as a villain by many historians due to his racism and his involvement in numerous war crimes.